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Dig through the Glass Engine. A truly cool little app that indexes Mp3 samples of over 60 compositions by Philip Glass. Play with the buttons or drag the blue bar at the top of the screen to browse by year (with or without a filter thrown on to get just film scores, opera, etc.). Drag the second series of blue bars to get presented with other selections with more or less joy, sorrow, intensity, density and velocity. Even if you don't care for Glass, think how you could use something like this elsewhere. (via Jerry Kindall)
posted by maudlin at 10:04 PM PST - 26 comments

New scholarship on the origins of the Koran claims that the Koran has been misread and mistranslated for centuries. For example, Islamic martyrs are not rewarded in paradise with "virgins," that's a mistranslation. Oops. (NYT member: metafi, password: metafi)
posted by homunculus at 9:00 PM PST - 36 comments

"We just want to provide a safe environment where the students can thrive." Cussing at school can get you ticketed and/or sent to juvenile hall now. Student free speech rights at risk? Tinker vs. Des Moines all over again?
posted by Kevin Sanders at 8:41 PM PST - 13 comments

"Bringing serenity to your busy workday". Bored with the view from your office? Kloudscape offers ten high-resolution images of clouds taken from 40,000 feet by photographer John Wang. These images are available in a variety of resolutions for use as desktop wallpaper.
posted by phatboy at 5:44 PM PST - 4 comments

Providence firefighters forced to march in gay parade. Is firefighters' participation in a gay rights parade "...an important demonstration of community solidarity" as claimed by one side, or should participation by public servants be limited to volunteers?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:02 PM PST - 25 comments

Myster is a new cross-platform P2P file-sharing application. The project has some admirable goals and interesting assumptions: "Myster will always try to make practices that adversely affect the greater community negatively affect the user doing them." (via macintouch)
posted by jjg at 3:15 PM PST - 8 comments

The Most Invasive Advertisement Ever. (NYT) At least we don't have to close ten 'Orbitz' pop-up windows, but this advertisement is extremely obnoxious.
posted by wsfinkel at 2:42 PM PST - 40 comments

Imagine losing almost $6 billion of your own personal fortune in a year and still being the richest damn human in the known universe, hands down, with no one even close. (If i must, here's a link to the new Forbes list.) What I want to know is, how come out of the approximately 500 billionaires on the list, only 35 are women, and of those, only ONE made it herself. All the other super rich dames on the globe either married bucks, or got 'em from daddy.
posted by jellybuzz at 2:39 PM PST - 21 comments

Another Dave Eggers hoax? Might be. I haven't found any confirmation anywhere else, but a hoax like this would be ghastly.
posted by macadamiaranch at 2:34 PM PST - 12 comments

A print journalist admits her fear of blogs "What the blog threatens to do is dislodge the traditional news media's corner on the "scoop" market. With their unorthodox reporting strategies and lightning-fast publishing schedules, blogs are making it clear that you don't need to have some big, fancy newspaper job to break stories. In fact, you don't even need to write stories; you can just throw a couple of sentences up on your site with some telling links. And you can quote that naked boy in your bed who knows how to hack protocols. Whatever."
posted by ezfowler at 2:07 PM PST - 23 comments

Bubble Soap. More Friday Flash goodness.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:00 PM PST - 4 comments

These are two of the most entertaining and cool uses of Flash I've seen all day - 1,2.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 1:13 PM PST - 13 comments

Take the Wonderlic test. The Wonderlic is a 50-question IQ test administered by the National Football League to all prospective draft picks. Teams use the test results to varying degree, in part to determine the ability of athletes to learn systems and grow as a player. Interestingly, offensive tackles and centers have the highest average NFL Wonderlic scores. (The test here is a fast 15-question sample; you'll need a piece of paper to jot down your answers.)
posted by werty at 11:40 AM PST - 31 comments

The recent violence in India and in various parts of the rest of the world made me ponder the contemporary relevance of MK Gandhi and his writings, specifically on violence.
posted by ajayb at 11:31 AM PST - 27 comments

Well hung at the Grammys. A minute-by-minute lambasting of pop music's biggest night. It just made me laugh.
posted by lostbyanecho at 11:26 AM PST - 13 comments

After 6 years hiding in the hills, Illija Panincic discovers that the war in Bosnia is over. On BBC today he told how he fought his next door neighbour, a bear, for the rights to the pear tree. I wonder how long they will be hiding in the hills in Afghanistan.
posted by Geo at 11:02 AM PST - 6 comments

"Children Drink 25% of Alcohol Consumed in the U.S." At least according to the attention-grabbing headline of a press release recently issued by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. The only problem is that it wasn't true. The organization had miscalculated the data, and the figure was actually closer to 11%. It was also misleading, since the word "children" included 18, 19, and 20 year-olds (who presumably do most of the drinking). Aside from yet another lesson in the inherent malleability of statistics, what conclusions should we draw from this study? Should we accept that teenagers are going to drink, and teach moderation? Or is stricter enforcement of the 21 age-limit the way to go? I'm also interested in the views of those living in (more enlightened?) countries with a lower drinking age.
posted by pardonyou? at 10:50 AM PST - 22 comments

The worst Internet ad ever. Hopefully I won't be the only one to see it; it's not clear how long it will be there. They actually obliterate your ability to see the content for a few seconds. Makes me want to strangle Next Day Blinds. Anyone else have examples of horrible (or good) new Internet ads?
posted by IPLawyer at 10:42 AM PST - 21 comments

Hello my future girlfriend. I can only listen to this once all the way through before I get embarrased. This may be a little bit light for a front-page post, but hey, it's Friday.
posted by dr_emory at 10:39 AM PST - 9 comments

Star Wars on telnet. It only gets about halfway through, but still an amazing effort.
posted by Gaz at 9:46 AM PST - 16 comments

dRuGs. no really i can handle it....
posted by Spoon at 9:10 AM PST - 12 comments

Boo!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:36 AM PST - 29 comments

Tomorrow, March 2, is the 98th birthday of Dr. Suess, and Kristian (the author of the link) suggested to me that we through him a party on the web. If you have a website or blog please dedicate your posts today or tomorrow to honor this most remarkable man, his legacy of stories and what impact they have had on your life. Happy Birthday Dr. Suess!
posted by Brilliantcrank at 8:22 AM PST - 29 comments

Java Script Games.. Rush hours is far too fiendish and time killing for its own good.
posted by Mossy at 8:18 AM PST - 6 comments

More from the "Watch What You Say Online" Department This Wired story mentions a fellow who badmouthed a thin-skinned company on an online forum and found himself hit with a $450,000 default judgment against him because he didn't show up in court to defend himself (he claims he had no idea he had been sued). Even those among us who might not be guilty of stealing have probably said something bad about various companies here and elsewhere. Should we all go hire a lawyer RIGHT NOW?
posted by briank at 6:30 AM PST - 17 comments

How come nobody talks about Poindexter ?
posted by magullo at 3:44 AM PST - 27 comments

There is no Cabal. For those of us worried about Big Dick's health, fear not. He's been busy installing a shadow government of his closest friends! Some people never get over high school rejection.
posted by Homeskillet Freshy Fresh at 3:01 AM PST - 39 comments